


transformation and reconstruction

by kingseagull



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, gaster is the riverperson au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 02:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17235536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingseagull/pseuds/kingseagull
Summary: The life of a scientist is that of a creator, an inventor, and a savior. Right now W.D. Gaster was none of those things.





	transformation and reconstruction

“g, you gotta stop checking in on everyone every of couple minutes, it’s starting to drive them crazy.”

The scientist sucks in a breath, signing with a wary expression, “ _Is it really that bad?_ ”

Sans twirls a pen in his hand and says, “i didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but yeah, it’s that bad.”

It had been about two months since the completion of the Core. With the help of everyone in the lab, Gaster’s magnum opus was able to come to fruition without a hitch. The Underground mandated safety tests had been taken care of fairly quickly, and he was left without much to do, causing him to get… antsy In the past few weeks, Gaster had gone on exactly 247 walks through the halls of the lab, checked in with all of the other scientists 82 times each, and, while unbecoming of someone of his profession, taken a nap in the office when he was alone 15 times. 

The life of a scientist is that of a creator, an inventor, and a savior. Right now W.D. Gaster was none of those things.

He takes a seat at his desk, purposely placed to be facing his assistant, and signs, “ _What do you suppose I do? I’m just wasting time sitting in this office all day._ ” 

“well…” Sans puts down his pencil and starts gathering the papers on his desk. “while you were going on your, i think, 173rd walk around, i dug out my old thesis, you know the one that got you to notice me in the first place?”

Gaster nods, how could he forget. 

With all his papers in a nice stack, Sans walks around to Gaster’s desk while putting a paper clip on to hold them all together and continues, “alright well i looked it over again, since i don’t have much to do either, and reworked it a bit. maybe you could take a peek at it, see whatcha think.”

Taking the papers from Sans, Gaster gives him a quick ‘thank you’ before reaching across his desk for his readers. He puts his glasses on, that somehow stay on his head despite not having anything to hold them up, and gets to work. Sans’ thesis is just as brilliant as he remembers it being the first time he read it, albeit reworked to show his improvement as a scientist. His theory was based around DETERMINATION and its potential effects on the flow of time. It allowed a human’s soul to persist after death, as they saw during the war, but what if it wasn’t just limited to that? Gaster was fascinated by this idea, and brought Sans in to work alongside him. The prospect of pursuing this idea with him was halted though, as they weren’t about to murder the King and Queen’s adopted child in the pursuit of science, he was their godfather for Pete’s sake, and artificially creating DETERMINATION was out of the question at the time.

But now…

Putting the papers down with a light slap, he looks up to Sans and signs, “ _You think the Core can solve our problem._ ”

“mmhmm.” Sans hoists himself up onto the clear space on the edge of Gaster’s desk and says, “with all the energy it’s creating, it got me thinking maybe some of that could be used towards building a machine that could artificially create the stuff and actually test if my theory is right.”

Quickly glancing through the papers once more, Gaster nods and signs, “ _That just might work Sans. We’d have to work out a few kinks towards the end here,_ ” and he points to a paragraph on one of the last pages, “ _but I don’t see why we couldn’t start working on this within the next week._ ”

Sans breaks out into a grin. “oh wow. i never thought i’d see the day my crazy idea from college could actually be pursued, and all it took was a massive energy converter to do it.”

Gaster leans back against his chair and signs with a smirk, “ _Well it’s that crazy idea of yours that got you working here in the first place._ ”

“i’m not sure if you’re praising me or not.”

“ _I was._ ” His smile softens into something more heartfelt. “ _If it wasn’t for it we would have never met._ ”

He offers an equally affectionate smile and gently kicks Gaster’s crossed legs. “compliment taken then.”

\---

The lights from the lower lab reflect off the surface of the water surrounding his boat. Despite parking in an area secluded from the magma, River Person could still feel the sweltering heat of Hotland through his cloak. After pulling his hood down, he dips his hand into the water and splashes it onto the back of his neck in an attempt to cool down. It offers little relief, but, it’ll have to do for now.

With a sigh he pulls the indigo hood back onto his head, leaning back against the bow of the gondola. Fifteen years now he had been running the waters of the Underground, transporting monsters from here to there like clockwork. It was almost too easy to slot into this new life of his. No one questioned why a mysterious hooded figure started appearing on the riverbank, oar in hand, disguising his voice with half-tunes and riddles. Most of the monsters he served he had never seen a day in his life, and he supposed that’s what happens when you hardly ever left the lab. From time to time, though, he would recognize his passenger and would make sure not to let them see his face.

Those days were the hardest, because when you’ve stopped existing, it’s hard to hold a conversation.

A light knock brings him out of his stupor. He glances to the bay to see a small, human child with their fist held against the side of the boat. Ah yes, he had forgotten one fell recently. They wore a striped, pink and blue sweater that was tucked into a pair of jean shorts, black shoes, and a bandage here and there on their legs. After a quick CHECK, he sees that their EXP had gone up at some point. He supposed that could be chalked up to self defence.

“Tra la la. I am the riverman. Or am I the riverwoman...? It doesn't rea̕lly͠ ͏ma͟tt̶e̴r͡.” Both he and the child visibly cringe at the sound. Whoops, didn’t mean to slip there. He shakes his head and quickly recovers, “I love to ride in my boat. Would you care to join me?”

The child makes a fist and nods their head, raising and lowering their hand in sync with the motion. He jumps up from his leaning position on the boat, quickly pulling his sleeves up to respond.  
River Person points to the child, then pulls his hands closer to his torso, quickly opening and closing them into fist with his brow quirked.

“ _You sign?_ ”

They smile repeat the motion from before, much more excited this time. River Person smiles back and claps his hands, then motions to the boat to welcome them aboard. The child takes the seat in the back of the boat and smiles up at them. He leans back against the bow and signs, “ _That makes my job a lot easier. Not a lot of monsters are comfortable signing as a main form of communication,_ ” he pauses, “ _well there are a few, but I tend to just use my voice when I’m on the job. Anyway, what is your name young one?_ ”

They fingerspell it out for him, “ _F-R-I-S-K_ ”

River Person nods. “ _Frisk, I’ll remember it. Now tell me, where would you like to go?_ ” Frisk tells him they’d like to go to Waterfall and he nods, summoning an extra pair of hands to row the boat. It’s not like they’d know anyone else who could do that anyway.

“ _I don’t mean to pry,_ ” he signs once they pick up a steady pace, “ _but I can’t help but notice you’ve accumulated quite a bit of EXP there._ ”

Frisk flinches, crossing their arms and folding in on themselves. After a moment, they reply, “ _They wouldn’t stop attacking me, I didn’t know that to do._ ”

He hums, understanding. “ _Well, if you’d let me offer my advice._ ” Frisk nods and he continues, “ _In my experience handling sticky situations, I’ve found that there is always a solution to be found. Perhaps simply... talking it out is the path to success._ ” They simply nod, and doesn’t respond further than that. Once the boat reaches Waterfall, he pulls up along the shore and comes to a complete stop. As they walk up the path towards Gerson’s place, he calls out, “Don’t forget what I said earlier.” Frisk turns back to him and waves, and he waves back. When Frisk is out of sight, he takes his boat back to Hotland to get ready for the crowd of monsters coming home from work.

He doesn’t hear about Frisk again until the night is over.

The Queen returns, then disappears, and he couldn’t even blame her. With all the human souls gone and full fledged rebellion, returning to the throne couldn’t have been easy. At some point he hears that Sans and his brother returned to the Ruins with Toriel. One less person to recognize him, he thinks, over a glass of scotch at Grillby’s after work one day. Even with less monsters than ever, he managed to keep up his business. Those who remained still had to get around, and a smiling, kind soul was always welcomed during times of anarchy.

Months pass like this, and River Person feels like he’s starting to get a little bit to comfortable.

It starts with a buzzing in the back of his skull. Closing his eyes, he thinks back to when the last time this had happened. It had to have been years by now. He leans back against the counter, he was in his apartment, and waits.

Breathe in  
.  
..  
…  
Breathe out  
…  
..  
.

A minute passes, then he can sense the room dissipate around him, almost falling from the loss of his countertop. He opens his eyes and stares into the never-ending inky blackness. Knowing this part never lasts long, closes his eyes again. Almost immediately the bright amalgamation of colour and light penetrates his eyelids and he thinks this must be what it’s like to stare directly into the sun. What was once dull buzzing has grown and evolved into a deafening screech, completely overwhelming his senses. He feels his soul beginning to expand and contract and lets out a prayer to whatever god may be listening for this to just make it sto-

 

Silence.

 

He opens his eyes. The lights from the lower lab reflect off the surface of the water surrounding his boat. Despite parking in an area secluded from the magma, River Person could still feel the sweltering heat of Hotland through his cloak. 

Any other time it had been RESET, he was brought back to right after the accident. If his hypothesis was correct and things played out like they did last time, the reason for this would be arriving in five more seconds.  
Four seconds.  
Three.  
Two.  
...

A light knock brings him out of his stupor. He glances to the bay to see Frisk and grins. This was all turning out to be very, very interesting. After offering his greeting, Frisk sits down in the back of the boat and he begins rowing them towards Waterfall. As they move, he glances back towards the human, doing a quick CHECK in the process. Seems like Frisk had gained less EXP than last time.

When they start walking towards Gerson’s again, he knocks on the bow to get their attention. “ _If you do choose to RESET again,_ ” he signs after Frisk turns towards him, their eyes widening with each word they read, “ _try not to kill anyone. Perhaps you’ll get the ending you desire._ ” Frisk says nothing and walks away, a little bit quicker this time. Maybe he was a little bit too forward with his “hint.”

Not even a day passes before the buzzing starts.

When he comes to, Frisk is knocking on the gondola as scripted and he smiles when he sees their EXP hadn’t gone up at all. “ _I see you took my advice to heart. Welcome aboard._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> even though were still in 2018 one of my resolutions is to finish most of the wips i keep making, or at least get them to a point they can be published and for this fic its the latter. as i publish these wips ill throw in some thought process behind them here
> 
> originally this was an exercise in writing without replying too heavily on page breaks. before writing out the last few paragraphs of this now i havent touched this in months, so i dont remember where i was going with this really. but what i do remember the resets would go on til it got in the hundreds though only be shown through the interactions between w.d. riverperson and frisk and only a handful of them at that  
> even without that, im happy with where this ended up and i hope you enjoyed
> 
>    
>  [as always feel free to follow on twitter](https://twitter.com/tolucagraveyard)


End file.
